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More than 100 years ago, the German physician and Nobel Prize winner Robert Koch predicted that “one day mankind will have to fight the burden of noise as fiercely as plague and cholera.” He was right. While many sounds in our environments are quite pleasant, noise, defined as unwanted sound, has the potential to cause real damage to our bodies and minds.
The principal sources of environmental noise are transportation and industrial operations. Since Koch’s time, researchers have come to recognize that such noise can cause sleep disturbances, elicit anger, and trigger conditions such as tinnitus and coronary heart disease caused by reduced blood flow to the organ. Noise can also lead to memory and learning impairments in children. In 2011, the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded that exposure to transportation-related noise—specifically from aircraft, vehicles, and trains—is responsible for the annual ...
